And as always, we'll have several times when we reference the Scriptures, the Word of God. I'm hoping, Derek, do either or both of you mind reading out loud if I ask you to read a verse? Is that fine? Okay. Usually, I'll just go down the line and have some of y'all read and save my voice a little bit throughout the evening. I never want to put anybody on the spot, though, if they're not comfortable reading out loud. Alright, so having settled that the integrity of the law is sound, the law of God, its integrity is sound because it's the reflection of God's character. And, the last time we were together, a couple weeks ago, we looked at Christ's obedience to the law as our grounds of justification, that by His both active and passive obedience, His active obedience in life, by fulfilling everything that the law commanded, and His passive obedience in death and bearing the penalty and the punishment for the law, that that is our grounds for justification. God can say that we are righteous in Christ. He can declare us righteous because Christ really was righteous. And He's not lying or pretending or making believe when He declares us to be righteous, but He's imputing that righteousness of Christ to our account. And He can be just in saying that that penalty of sin was paid for. The Scriptures tell us that in times before, it was as if God winked at sin. But now He calls all men everywhere to repent, and no longer. Is it appearing as if God is winking at sin, that He's just letting it go on and on and not calling any punishment to it or just retribution? But He can declare that that penalty has been paid because it has in Christ. So that's the active and passive obedience of Jesus Christ. That's what we talked about a couple of weeks ago. So now let's turn our attention to the connection between the Law of God and the Holy Spirit. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, we know, is the triune God. Three distinct persons, one God. One in nature, one in essence, as the confessions and creeds say, and yet different in persons. And yet perfectly unified. And so, if the Law is a reflection of God the Father and His holiness, if it was perfectly obeyed by God the Son, Jesus Christ, then we can't imagine that the Holy Spirit is opposed to it. Otherwise, there would be division within the Trinity, and we know there is no division. What we talked about a couple of weeks ago, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, that has often been accused down through the ages, from the earliest points in church history up until today's day and age, by those who believe that they have to earn their justification by some works righteousness, when you tell them no justification is by faith alone, in Christ alone, often those who want to believe in works salvation accuse us of thwarting holy living. What shall we say then? Shall sin abound that grace may abound? That was Paul's argument that Paul was receiving in the first century, and it's the same kind of argument you'll often get from the Church of Christ, or the Roman Catholics, or anybody who is trusting in some kind of obedience and works in order to earn their favor with God. And so you tell them, no, it's none of those things. And they say, well, then why would anybody live holy? Why would anybody obey? You're just giving them a license to sin. But that's not what the Scripture emphasizes or teaches at all. Rather, what the Scripture and Orthodox Christianity has always been consistently teaching is that because of our justification by faith alone, we now have the correct groundwork for a life of holy living. Let me read you one of those quotes I told you I would reference. This is a man by the name of B.B. Warfield, and this is what he said. It is uniformly taught in Scripture that by his sin man has not merely incurred the divine condemnation, but also corrupted his own heart. So it's not just something going on in a legal sense. It's not just what God the Judge is saying in the courtroom, but there's a real sense of corruption in our hearts that sin causes. That sin, in other words, is not merely guilt, but depravity. And that there is needed for man's recovery from sin, therefore, not merely atonement, but renewal. That salvation, that is to say, consists not merely in pardon, but in purification. Great as is the stress laid in the Scriptures on the forgiveness of sins as the root of salvation, no less stress is laid throughout the Scriptures on the cleansing of the heart as the fruit of salvation. Nowhere is the sinner permitted to rest satisfied with pardon as the end of salvation. Everywhere he is made poignantly to feel that salvation is realized only in a clean heart and a right spirit. So, he's making that same point that Paul was making, that Christians in all ages have made, that anyone who says, I've been forgiven, I'm not going to hell anymore, God's forgiven me my sins, that can be the end of my Christian walk. There's no need for me to do anything else. After that, there's no need for me to read God's Word, attempt to follow it. I've been forgiven. And that's the end of it, he says. No, that's nowhere found in scripture. That's nowhere been taught in true church history. It's been taught all throughout the ages, and it's always been condemned as falsehood and error by those who are holding to the truth. Our need for salvation comes not only from our guilt, but from our moral pollution. Salvation requires deliverance from sin's bondage, but it also requires deliverance from sin's curse. And that's why when the Scriptures tell us that if we confess our sins, Jesus Christ is faithful to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There's the pardoning aspect and there's the purifying aspect. He both forgives and he sanctifies. Well, we must distinguish between justification and sanctification. Several years ago, I taught, I think, two semesters on the doctrine of justification. And then a year or so later, we taught, I think, one semester on the doctrine of sanctification. Hopefully, you understand that we're not going to be able to do that kind of in-depth study this evening on it, but you need to realize that when you confuse the doctrine of justification, which is the pardon of our sins, when God declares us to be righteous, when that's confused with sanctification, the ongoing process in our life whereby God makes us more holy, that's when you begin to run into a lot of error and it can even very quickly become heresy. That we're working toward salvation is what happens when you combine the two. Our sanctification is part of our justification. Or, that we're justified based on our works. That's a combining of the two. So, we have to distinguish between them. Justification happens in a moment. God declares us to be righteous. Sanctification happens for the rest of our life. It's a process. It's progressive. So we distinguish between them, but we cannot ever imagine that they are completely separated. When you imagine that you can have justification and there never will be sanctification that follows, or when you somehow, maybe even in another stranger sense, imagine that a person can be sanctified without ever being justified, that's when you begin to run into a lot of errors. Lewis Burkhoff wrote this, he said, "...the Reformers, in speaking of sanctification, emphasized the antithesis of sin and redemption. They made a clear distinction between justification and sanctification regarding the former as a legal act of divine grace affecting the judicial status of man, So that's justification, we're judicially declared right by God's grace. And the latter, sanctification, as a moral or recreative work. changing the inner nature of man. But while they made a careful distinction between the two, they also stressed their inseparable connection. Justification is at once followed by sanctification. Now when he says, and when we say, justification is at once followed by sanctification, we don't mean a person is immediately perfect as soon as they've been justified. But that's immediately the process begins. From that point on, you should be able to begin to see a moving in that direction. Justification is at once followed by sanctification, since God sends out the Spirit of His Son into the hearts of His own as soon as they are justified, and that Spirit is the Spirit of Sanctification. So when we talk about sanctification, this process of being made more holy, more righteous, more dead to sin, more alive to God, We mean to be set apart by and unto God. That's what sanctification is. We're being set apart by God and we're being set apart unto God. And it's a lifelong process. so that the Christian is recreated after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness, and empowered by the Holy Spirit to die progressively to sin and to live more in conformity with God's law. The law of God, then, is that standard. which defines for us the holiness that is God's will for us, and the sinfulness to which we are to die." So when we say sanctification is a dying to sin and a living to God, well, that begs the question, what is sin and what is life unto God? Are those just abstract statements and ideas, or is there something real and concrete? Is there a definition for what those things are which we're doing less and less and hating more and more, and what those things are which we're doing more and more and loving less and less? Is there an objective standard for that? And there is. It's God's law. It's God's Word. God defines for us what sin is and what holiness is. Salvation continues. Beyond the point of justification, a lot of times when we use the word salvation, we use it synonymously with justification. At that moment, we're saved from hell, from the devil, from the bondage that we were under. But God continues, for the rest of our life, to save us from sin, from ourselves. He continues that purifying, being made holy process. And salvation in that sense continues beyond the point of justification into the process of sanctification. A process which begins with a definitive break from the bondage of sinful depravity. So at the moment of justification, that's what Burkhoff was referencing a moment ago when he says it's immediately followed by sanctification. The first step of sanctification happens at the point of justification recognized in the believer. That when God imparts that faith and repentance unto life, that's the first step of being made holy unto God, being set apart unto Him. And it matures by progressively preparing the Christian to enjoy eternal life with God by the internal purifying of his moral condition. I think we're going to read the verse at one point tonight. I don't remember for 100%, but you know that scripture that tells us to follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord." So when God makes us more holy here on this earth, He's preparing us for that final, perfect happiness and holiness which we'll enjoy in His presence. Hopefully, for most believers, it's not a matter of just living a whole life of rebellion and sin against God, and then going to heaven and enjoying perfection. But rather, God and His mercy and His grace, for most people, allows us to have some time between when we repent and believe unto life, and when we actually stand there face to face with Him, and He begins that process of sanctifying us, making us more able to enjoy that eternal life which we're going to enjoy with Him. Ms. Ida, would you look up Acts chapter 16 and verse 31? Acts 16.31. This is just one place in Scripture out of 121 places in Scripture. where Jesus is given the title in the same place of both Christ and Lord. Now there's more places where He's just called Christ, and there's more places where He's just called Lord, but there's 121 places in the Bible where He's given the title of both Christ and Lord. Would you read Acts 16.31 for us? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thou hast believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." Now you understand, Jesus was His name. Lord is His title, His position. He's the Lord. He's the Master. He's the one over us. And Christ is that designation of the Promised One, the Savior, the Messiah, the One who came to set His people free. I had someone fairly recently who was talking to me about different Bible translations and textual criticism and things of this nature. And he said, you know, a lot of the scribes in the Near East that were translating the Bible, it was common in their cultures to give people multiple titles. And so as time went on, it just kind of became habit for them to write Christ, Jesus, the Lord, Savior, all together. And it probably wasn't there in the originals, but that was just kind of a cultural thing that the scribes ended up putting into the passage. But when you take away the divinely inspired nature of this two-fold office of Christ, that He's called again and again and again and again, Christ and Lord, it's just one straw taken out of the foundation that the Scriptures give us clearly and consistently, that Jesus is not just a ticket out of hell, as Christ, as Savior, as Messiah, but He's also Master and Lord for the Christian. And not for that reason. There's many reasons, I believe, in the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture as we have it. But it's that Constant, small, plucking away at these things that maybe seem inconsequential, that end up adding up to very big doctrines down the road. But it's the two-fold office of Christ to the believer, to be both Christ and Lord. Yes, we're justified by His saving work, His active and passive obedience here on this earth, but we're also saved in His Lordship, in the fact that He gets to command how we live, what we believe, how we govern our life. His office is that of Savior and of Lord, of Lawgiver, of the One who gives us all the commandments that we're called to live by. The scriptural foundation for the necessity of sanctification in the life of a believer is long and full. So let's run through a bunch of scriptures and see if we can notice a theme here in the Bible on this idea of being made holy unto God, being set apart, being sanctified. Sister Debbie, would you read Romans 8.29? Anna, would you read Ephesians 4.13? Derek, would you read 1 Corinthians 1.9? Hope, would you read Psalm 5.4? Elena, would you read Romans 6.2-6? Darla, would you read Psalm 97.10? Chris, would you look up Deuteronomy 7.2-4? Do you mind reading, Landon? Would you look up 2 Corinthians 6, verse 17? And then, Ms. Ida, would you look up Ephesians 5, verse 11? That's a bunch of Scriptures, but we're not done yet. But let's see if we can follow this progression, this pattern of thought that's being laid down in the Scriptures. Sister Debbie, did you have Romans 8.29? Would you read that for us? For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. So what we were predestinated to was to being conformed to the image of His Son. That's part and parcel with our salvation. When God predestinated us, when He foreknew us, it was that He foreknew and predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son. Anna, would you read Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 13? until we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." So we're being built up into the fullness of the stature of Christ. Derek, 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 9. God is faithful, by whom ye were called into the fellowship of the Son of Jesus Christ our Lord. We've been called into the fellowship, or to be in union with Him, to have that communion with Him. Hope, Psalm chapter 5 and verse 4. "...For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee." So evil cannot dwell with God, which would put a damper on us being able to dwell with Him. continuing in our sins. Romans chapter 6 and verses 2 through 6. God forbid, how shall we, that are dead in sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not that so many of us were baptized unto Jesus Christ, were baptized unto his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death. That like as Christ raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so also should we walk in a newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, and henceforth we shall not serve sin. So, union with Christ requires that the believer be dead to sin, that the old man be crucified, and that sin no longer have dominion over him. How about Psalm 97, verse 10? Ye that love the Lord hate evil. He preserved the souls of his saints. He delivered them out of the hand of the wicked. So, those who love the Lord must hate evil. Deuteronomy 7, verses 2-4. And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them. Neither shalt thou make marriages with them. Thy daughter thou shalt not give unto thy son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following thee, that they may serve other gods. So will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. So the emphasis of God in keeping the children of Israel separate from all of the pagans was that their hearts wouldn't be turned after their gods. It's always kind of befuddled me when people have brought that verse to me and said, do you think that this is saying that there can't be any interracial marriages? Well, no. He says clearly, what's the reason for this? You're not to be connected with unbelievers. We don't want you to be marrying those who are going to turn your heart after other gods, which is what the people of that land were certainly doing. So we have to separate ourselves from the ungodly and ungodliness. Land in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 17, Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate. Sayeth the Lord, And trust not the unclean thing, and I will receive you. Very good. Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 11, Maceda. And have no fellowship with the uncircumcised of darkness, but rather improve them. So are you seeing the theme here? Again and again and again, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, there's this consistent theme that those who are God's people, those who have been regenerated, those who have been pardoned, have this expectation upon their life that there would be a growing in holiness and a separating and dying to sin and self. The idea of a Christian being obedient to the commands of God, that some have suggested that that's some man-made doctrine, just is really hard for me to wrap my mind around. It seems to me that the Scriptures are so clear about it, are so consistent in it, that I'm not quite sure how we come up with the idea that this is something created by men, except for that men don't want to obey the commands of God, don't want to follow the word of God, and so they look for any excuse not to. I was very young and naive and ignorant when I took my first church, and I didn't know that there was even a dispute in the so-called Christian world over this topic. And this was the topic over which they ended up asking me to leave the church over. I was teaching that a Christian is supposed to be trying to obey God's commands. And they didn't want to hear that. They didn't want to believe that. They said, you're believing in Lordship, Salvation. I said, you mean like when you're saved, Jesus Christ is your Lord? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, that's not what we believe. And it just really kind of caught me off guard because I wasn't prepared for that debate. I knew there were all kinds of controversies in so-called Christianity, but I didn't know that was one of them. And it very much is. So we need to be cognizant of the fact that the Scriptures are replete with these teachings. The plain fact of the matter is that to believe that the unrighteous could inherit the kingdom of heaven. For someone to believe that the unrighteous could inherit the kingdom of heaven is to be deceived. That's what 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9 tells us. It says, "...know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived." Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And lest you become distraught, he says, and such were some of you, but ye are washed. but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." So clearly what he's saying is, you can't be a Christian and expect to inherit the Kingdom of God and say, I don't care what the Word of God says, I'm going to continue on in my sin, I'm not going to repent, I'm not going to follow what God says, and I'll just live the way I want to. I will, by character, reputation, and my own proclamation, be a fornicator, an idolater, an adulterer, effeminate, abuser of myself with mankind, a thief, a covetous, drunkard, reviler, extortioner. And so you have this concept today that, well, I can be a gay Christian. Well, what do you mean by that? Do you mean that you can still have some inward corruption? in your own heart and mind that allows you to be tempted with that sin and be a Christian? Absolutely. Yes, you can. We all have temptations because of the corruption of our own heart and indwelling sin. But are you saying, I can identify as that, I can live in that, I can continue on in that, I can proclaim that to be who I am and what I do and be a Christian? The Scripture says, no, you can't. You might have used to have been that, but you're not anymore. But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified. And right there in the middle of that, he says, be not deceived. And there is this spirit of deceit, this mind of deceit, that has taken over enormous swaths of so-called evangelicalism, so-called Christianity. that believes that the unrighteous can inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, that they can continue on boasting in their sins and still call themselves a Christian. And Paul says, that's a heart that's been deceived. Who believes that? However, we still have a dilemma. We see all of this laid out, and let's walk it out step by step. Ms. Debbie, would you look up Matthew chapter 5 and verse 48? Derek, would you look up Romans chapter 7 and verse 23? Hope, would you look up Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 1? Elena, would you look up Romans chapter 8 and verse 11? And Darla, would you look up Romans chapter 8 and verse 2? Okay, so here's our dilemma. Point number one of our dilemma is that the level of perfection required by God is that of His own perfection. That's the standard. What does Matthew chapter 5 and verse 48 tell us? Matthew 5, verse 48. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." It doesn't get much clearer than that, does it? That's the standard to which God holds us. Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Are you beginning to see the first glimpses of a dilemma? You probably see it in bold colors all in front of you now. That level of perfection, of His own perfection, is reflected in His law, which we've already established, that the law of God is a reflection of His own perfect character, and yet we have another law warring within our members. That's what Romans chapter 7 and verse 23 tells us. When I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. a teaching that I actually believed for a while, and now I don't believe it any longer, that Paul was talking here about before he was converted, that there was this, but I don't think so. I think he's talking about the struggle that all Christians face. There's a war going on inside us. We wish to do good and we find it hard to do. Even when I believed that that was Paul talking about before he was a believer, I understood that that was a real struggle. Every Christian faces, every Christian recognizes that we're called to the level of God's perfection that's reflected in His law, and yet there's another law, that of our own remaining corruption, remaining sin, warring within our members. In fact, it's not just a war, but it's a war we've already lost. According to the Scriptures, by ourselves we're dead in trespasses and sins. Would you read Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 1, Hope? And you have He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. So, we lost the war. It killed us. How do we relieve this tension? not just in justification, which is God declaring us to be righteous. We're grateful for that. We're grateful that at the bar of God, before His judgment seat, we've been declared righteous. But the dilemma is still there in front of us, that there's a war going on within our members. And we're not perfect as He is perfect. The answer, the relief to this tension, is found in Romans chapter 8 and verse 11. Would you read that for us, Alayna? So the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells within us, who were dead in trespasses and sins, and quickens us, as Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 1 tells us. He doesn't just pardon us, but He quickens us. He makes us alive. He enlivens us. He activates us, as it were. If the Holy Spirit has the power to raise Jesus from the dead, then dwelling within us is that same resurrection power which takes that which was bound and dead and makes it free and alive. That's what Romans chapter 8 and verse 2 tells us. Would you read that for us, Ms. Dalla? For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. So, we were bound by sin, we were dead in sin, and the resurrection of Jesus, coupled with that indwelling, resurrecting power of the Spirit, enlivens us to be able to do that which we once were completely unable to do. This doesn't mean, as I said before, that immediately or ever in this life, we're made perfect to that standard of God's perfection. What it does mean is that we're quickened, we're enlivened to be able to now work towards that, walk towards that, which we were before completely unable to do. The Proverbs tells us that the high look and even the plowing of the wicked is sin. The Scriptures tell us in another place that all that is done without faith is sin. So the unconverted man, everything he does is sin. And we recognize that on a horizontal plane, man to man, people do things that are good. Unconverted men do things that help their families, that help their neighbors, that help their communities. They plow. They do something constructive. They do something productive. But before God, even those supposed good things are sin. Whereas for the believer, when they do those constructive, productive things in obedience to the Word of God, it's actual righteousness. It's actual being made more like Christ, being made more in His image. This is what the London Baptist Confession of Faith says about sanctification. Its portion on sanctification is chapter 13, and point 1 says this, They who are united to Christ, effectually called and regenerated, having a new heart and a new spirit created in them through the virtue of Christ's death and resurrection, are also farther sanctified. By the power of Christ's resurrection they're justified, but they're all also further sanctified, really and personally. Not just judicially, but really and personally, through the same virtue, by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them. The dominion, the captivating power of the whole body of sin is destroyed. and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified. And they, the sins, are weakened and mortified, but the people, they, are more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of all true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." The uniform scriptural perspective in all of this, basically what we're saying, what we're getting at, is that God's Spirit is necessary for the process of sanctification. I've heard people say things like, Justification is monergistic, meaning all a work of God. But sanctification is synergistic, a work of us and God. But really, no, it's all monergistic. It's all a work of God. And God works in us to do and to will of His good pleasure, according to the Scriptures. So sanctification itself, this progressive working out of further holiness and dying to sin and self, does not happen at all. without the power of the Holy Spirit indwelling us. We leave off with Darla. Chris, would you look up 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 2? Landon, would you look up Exodus chapter 31 and verse 13? Ms. Ido, would you look up 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 23? Ms. Debbie, would you look up Galatians 3, verse 3? So let's start with 1 Peter 1 and verse 2. What does that say? No, that's perfect. Was that the end? Okay, so we have elect according to God the Father, the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, and sanctified by the Spirit unto obedience. That's the three-fold work there of the Trinity in the life of the believer. There is no sanctification without that work of the Holy Spirit that 1 Peter 1 and verse 2 talks about. But this isn't a New Testament idea. This isn't just something that happened under the New Covenant, but it's always been true in God's covenant with His people. What does Exodus chapter 31 and verse 13 say, Landon? Exodus chapter 32. 31 and verse 13. Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep. For it is the time between me and you, throughout your generation, that ye may know that I am the Lord, that God, that does sanctify you." So he says, you are to keep my Sabbaths, this is a sign between me and thee, that people may know that you keep me. How does all that happen? I am the Lord that sanctifies thee. The Lord gives you the quickening ability to be obedient to Him. We're about 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 23. So it's that same God that sanctifies us wholly, with a W, completely, fully. Having been justified by the power of the Spirit of God, Paul tells us in the book of Galatians, it's impossible that we would be sanctified by our own power. Should we read Galatians 3.3 for us? 3.3. Are you so foolish, having the gun and the spirit, or ye now, made perfect out of flesh? Are you that foolish? that you think it takes the power of God to justify you, but now you can finish it. You can be made perfect by your own power, in your own flesh. And of course not. It's a work of the Spirit. Now there's several ideas that have become prevalent in today's modern western so-called Christianity. that either wants to say that the Spirit of God replaces the law, or that the Spirit of God is opposed to the law, or that sanctification replaces the law. And all of these things are not scriptural. First, the Spirit does not replace the law. In living the Christian life before God, It is essential for the believer that we be people of the Word of God written. It's essential that we be people of the Word of God written. It is a very grave error that has crept into large portions of so-called Christianity that we define the rightness of our actions. Once again, we're getting down to what this topic or this class is about. Ethics. Biblical ethics. Many of us have fallen into the error, there are many who have fallen into the error of defining the rightness of our actions on whether or not we felt the Spirit move. You ever heard someone say something like that? I just felt like the Spirit wanted me to. That's nice. What does that mean? Why did you feel like the Spirit was moving you too?" Well, I would have said that, I would have done that, I just didn't feel like the Spirit was moving that way. He said it better than I could, so let me read to you what Bronson says about that. He says, now I'm on the wrong page. For claiming to receive guidance from an inner revelation of God's Spirit, all these people are amazingly reluctant to specify what God said. I didn't feel like the Spirit... Oh, so what did God say? I'm not saying He said... It's not like I heard an audible voice either. I don't know that He said anything. I just didn't feel like... One must wonder, when a person cannot clearly relate what the content of God's message was, whether the inner revelation was clear even to the person who supposedly received it. If you can't specifically tell me what He said, then maybe you don't even know what He was saying. Besides, what shall we do when two different people falteringly express what the Spirit's direction was and their accounts radically differ? What do we do at that point? I remember probably all of you here, maybe not, have heard Pastor Michael tell the story about the church that he'd just been voted in as a pastor. He'd been there like two weeks, I think, and somebody walked in the back door and said, God told me I'm supposed to be the pastor here. He didn't know that he'd been elected pastor. He thought the church was still without a pastor. God told me I'm supposed to be the pastor here. Pastor Michael's like, wow, really? That's amazing. Did he tell you that I was the pastor here and that you're supposed to replace me? And he got all red in the face. Oh, no, I didn't know you were the pastor here. That's funny. I thought God was leading me to be the pastor here, but now you're telling me God told you to be the pastor here. God must be confused. Now we must be confused, right? And this is what happens when we begin to allow our own desires and feelings to dictate our ethics, what's right and what's wrong. I feel like the Spirit's moving me to do this. That's very, very subjective. What does that mean, that the Spirit's moving you to do that? Is it in line with the Word of God? Have you sought biblical counsel on this topic? Is it in line with the priorities that God has called you to, to your station in life? These are the questions we ought to be asking ourselves, things that can be objectively defined. These are some of the words that have been used theologically speaking. Usually you and I aren't dealing with the Quaker theologian who's talking to us about whatever theological term it is. Most of the time it's a co-worker or someone we meet in the grocery store or something like that who tells us, I just didn't feel like God was wanting me to do that at that time. That's just kind of the extent of it. But if you talk to some of these other religious Theologians, so-called, they may use terms like insight, piety, intuition, practical reason, mystical rapport, valuation, spiritual vitality, guiding light, terms like that. When you hear terms like that, that ought to be a little bit of a red flag to you. What I'm interested in is what you can say, here's what God said. I didn't feel like God wanted this or that at the moment. It's funny, I was preparing for this lecture and I had just seen where someone had shared a quote on social media that, and I'm probably going to butcher it, but it went something like, the problem is not that Johnny can't think. The problem is not even that Johnny doesn't know how to think, the problem is that Johnny has confused thinking with feeling. Something along those lines. And that's so true in our nature. You don't have to talk to someone long before everything is what I felt like. What were you thinking? Were you thinking on things that were good and true? Were you taking every thought captive? Do you have something objective, a standard that you can rest that on? Otherwise you'll be tossed to and fro. Because our emotions, man... A lot of people think I'm stoic and not very... emotional and things like that. Probably compared to a lot of the population, that's true. But I just know from my own personal experience, emotions are fickle. They're here today and gone tomorrow. Based on how hungry I am, how much sleep I've had, who I'm upset with at the moment, changes what I feel like ought to happen right now. Someone was in the store, a little bit of a rabbit trail, someone was in the store the other day and they were just They weren't buying anything. They were just standing there talking and talking and talking. About 30-45 minutes went by and I was just standing there talking. I hadn't had lunch yet. It was like quarter to two. And I was getting ill. I was getting upset with all that. Just leave already. I want to eat my lunch. I feel weird sitting here eating with you standing there talking to me. I have other work that needs doing. And what I felt like my reaction to them ought to be was different than what God has told me my reaction to people ought to be. It can just change on a whim. So the Spirit doesn't replace the Law, doesn't replace the Word of God. We don't say, I know what the Bible says, I just felt like God was leading me to do thus and such. Well, no. Spirit doesn't replace the Law, nor is the Spirit opposed to the Law. Derek, would you look up Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 27? You might hear, I just felt like God was leading me to do this, I didn't feel the Spirit moving, or you might hear something a little bit more blatant, a little more Abrasive like, we used to be under the law, but now we're under grace. Now we're led by the Spirit. As if the Spirit is in some way opposed to the law. Good thing the Spirit came along and got rid of that law. But what did Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 27 promise? And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall keep My judgments and do them. So God promised when He sent His Spirit, that His Spirit would cause us to walk in His statutes, and do His judgments. Statutes and judgments are words that are used all throughout the Scriptures, synonymously with words like commandments, and law, and principle. When you read Psalm 119, again and again you see words like this, and it's talking about the Word of God written. His statutes, His judgments. His commandments. And so He promised, I'm going to make it one day where the Spirit comes upon you, which will enliven you, which will enable you to walk in My statutes, to keep My commandments. The Spirit was promised in order that we might be able to keep the Law. Alright, we're winding down but we still have a couple more points to go. Let's take a 2 or 3 minute break if you need to use the bathroom or stretch your legs or something like that and we'll sit back down here in about 3 minutes and try to wind this down. Alright, so as we kind of touched on there a moment ago but I want to delve into it a little bit deeper. Sanctification by the Spirit, we've established that sanctification doesn't happen without the Spirit, right? So sanctification, to say we're being made holy, dying to sin and to self and living to God, really necessitates the law. It demands there be a law. We can't give any definitive objective standard to which we're coming more and more in line to unless there's an objective definitive standard. We can't say I'm getting closer to this point unless there's a point. So there has to be a standard, there has to be a law for us to say we're coming more in line with it. If we say that God's making us more holy, what is holiness? If we say he's making us more opposed to sin, what is sin? And as we've already talked about in previous lectures, the scriptures tell us that sin is any transgression of the law, and holiness is coming more and more in line with God's own character as reflected in the law. Sanctification requires exertion. Okay, we're going to I was about to say in a few weeks, probably more like a few months. But eventually we'll get to 2 Peter 1, verses 5-7. And it says this, And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. It says, "...for if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." I don't know about you, but that sounds like a lot of work. To give all diligence to add faith, and to faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and brotherly kindness charity. It's like he's saying, your work's never done. Once you've got one grace down, move on to the next one. Give diligence to continue to grow in grace in these things. But it must be exertion enabled by the Holy Spirit. What we were looking at a couple of weeks ago is that the Pharisees and Sadducees weren't wrong because they kept the law too well. They were wrong because they were attempting to do it all in their own power and for their own reasons, instead of being enabled by God to do it humbly and out of love for Him. The Spirit must regenerate and renew us, overcome our sinful nature, free us from the works of the flesh, lead us and produce His fruits in us. So in order for the Spirit to do all of those things, There must be a law just by definition. None of those things make any sense in the real world, as the Confession says, really and personally, unless there's a standard by which we can be saying, yes, I see that. I look at where I was. when I was first converted, and I look at where I am now, and I see. God told me not to covet, and I can see that the Spirit has made me less covetous as the years have gone on. God told me not to be an adulterer, and I can see that I've learned to bring those lustful thoughts captive to obedience of the Gospel as the years have gone on. God's commanded me not to have any other gods before Him, and I can see that now I love Him more purely and fervently than I did 10 years ago or whatever the fact may be, we have a standard by which we can say, is this something I'm more in line with now or less in line with? It's like watching any chart though. I don't know, I have this morbid fascination with the stock market and you're watching it. Like this. But you watch it over the last couple of years and it's like this. It just keeps going higher and higher. That's what the believer Anna and I were talking about the other day. She said, isn't it amazing that Solomon, she's reading in her personal devotions about Solomon, Solomon sacrificed to other gods for his pagan wives And yet the scriptures seem to indicate to us that God loved him and blessed him and he was God's child. And yet if we were a contemporary with Solomon, we'd probably look at him and say, he can't be a Christian. And we understand more than likely Ecclesiastes is his repentance, his recognition that he lived a lot of his life in vanity. was disobedient in those ways. But sometimes we can look at a believer and we can say, see, they're not being sanctified. They must not be a Christian. Well, no, we can't see the course of their life. We may be watching a dip like David had when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed. Doesn't seem like a very Christian thing to do. Scriptures tell us he was a man after God's own heart. So we can't look at someone in a moment and say, see, Pastor Josh in his lecture, Christians are always sanctified. They're not acting very sanctified. No, let's look at a consistent pattern of their life. Let's look at how they live in 10 years, in 20 years. Are they repentant? Is that the outlier instead of the pattern of their life? When confronted with their sins, are they quick to admit them and turn from them? Or are they those boasters, like we talked about, who just identify with their sins? So sanctification necessitates the law. Recognizing that the Spirit bears witness to the Word, we should not trust ourselves or our feelings of spiritual guidance to draw up the blueprint of Christian ethics. The pattern of our sanctification must be learned from the Word of God written. Christian morality has an objective standard of righteousness on which it depends for guidance and ethical decisions. Early in the Bible it is revealed to us that sanctification must be according to the Word of God." And Landon read us that verse a little while ago in Exodus, "...I, the Lord, that sanctify thee." Theonomy, that's a word we've used throughout this class. And for those of you who weren't here early on, when we say theonomy, we're talking about God's law being governed by God's law. That's literally what the word theonomy means. Theo having to deal with God and Nomos having to deal with the law. Theonomy, being governed by God's law, is the manual of Christian living. Autonomy is the way of spiritual death. Leaning on ourselves and our own understanding and our own feelings is the way to death. Leaning on God's Word, His commandments, His law, is the manual of Christian living. The test of the Spirit's work then, similarly, is not whether or not you've ever spoken in tongues or whether you've discerned your spiritual gift, or whether or not you've ever performed a miracle, or any of those silly things that many people take from the apostolic age and try to apply to our age. But just as the test of love and discipleship to the Son, and the test of knowing God and revering Him is obedience to the law, didn't Jesus say, if you love me, keep my commandments, So we know that that's the test of love and discipleship to Him. We know the test of knowing God and revering Him is obedience to His commandments, and so it is with the Spirit of God. 1 John 3 and verse 24 says, "...he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us." How do we know that the Spirit abides in us? And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us. So we know the Spirit abides in us by our obedience to his commandments. That's 1 John, which dwells heavily on how do we know? How do we know? How do we know? Well, he tells us how we know. And lastly, but don't be fooled by lastly because this is the lengthiest point of all, is the Spirit, the Law, and the means of grace. Sanctification by the Spirit, or as we might say, growth, maturation in the Christian life, is worked out, God uses means, we call them the means of grace, to grow us. He uses means for this. There are things that God specifically uses to grow us. He doesn't grow us in Christian grace by osmosis, or just by the passage of time. I've been a Christian for 20 years, shouldn't I be holier than I was 20 years ago? You should be, but it doesn't just happen. You don't just float through life and magically get holier. God uses means. And the three means that have always been recognized through the Scriptures in Orthodox Christianity is prayer, the Word of God, and the ordinances. Particularly when we say the ordinances, we're talking about the Lord's Supper and baptism. Those three things, when someone talks about the means of grace, sometimes they're called the ordinary means of grace, They're usually talking about those three things if they're talking in a theological framework. However, even those things are governed by God's commandments. by God's law. Prayer doesn't get to be done the way that we feel like it can best be done. The Word of God can't be taken just however we feel like it ought to be taken, and the sacraments can't be followed just the way that we feel that they ought to be followed. James chapter 5 and verse 16 tells us it's the prayers of a righteous man, the effectual fervent prayers of a righteous man that avail much. Well, what's a righteous man? That's what we've been talking about this whole time, right? It's someone who's being obedient to the commands of God. 1 John 3, verse 22 says, "...and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight." In 1 Peter 3, in verse 12, Peter says that the Lord attends the prayers of the righteous, but His face is against evildoers. John 9, in verse 31, John says God does not hear sinners, but the God-fearing and those who do His will. Proverbs 28, in verse 9, says that he who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination. So, when we say prayer is a means of grace, We mean prayer the way God defines prayer. Obedient prayer. The man who's praying, attempting to follow God's descriptive will for how we pray. I could go on and on. We want to look at some of these later. Proverbs 15.29, Proverbs 1.24, Psalm 66.18, Micah 3.4, Isaiah 59-2, Zechariah 7-12, 2 Chronicles 7-14. You've probably all seen that one on a bumper sticker or something of that nature. But if my people, which are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, not just pray, but a particular type of prayer. John 15, 7, all of those verses talk about, it's the righteous man's prayers whom God hears, and the wicked who He turns away from. Obedience is also an indispensable ingredient in acquiring knowledge from reading God's Word. How many of you have met someone, know someone even maybe, who you're almost afraid to get into a theological debate with them, because you know they know more Bible than you do. And yet their theology is all wrong. They know where it is in the Bible. They can quote these verses. They've got all their bullet points memorized. They probably don't know the Bible as a whole better than you do, but they've got all their talking points. Now, I know a lot of people who are afraid to engage with a Mormon or Jehovah's Witness, because they don't feel equipped to. But the disobedient, who attempt to use God's Word for their own devices, don't have that as a means of grace. Satan did that. When Satan tempted the Lord Jesus, he tempted Him with the Word of God. He brought the Word to Him. And He said, doesn't the Word say? He gives angels charge over you, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone. So just go ahead, throw yourself off. But that didn't mean that the Word was a means of grace for Satan. It certainly wasn't. So obedience is important. as the Word of God being used as a means of grace. And certainly we understand that the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper, we're called to take heed to ourselves when we take the Lord's Supper, to examine ourselves, to ensure that we're not taking it inappropriately. Here is an excerpt from the Forms of Public Profession of Faith, Baptism, and the Lord's Service. This is a a written form of worship that some churches use. The pastor would say before he gave the supper, it is my solemn duty to warn the uninstructed, the profane, the scandalous, and those who secretly and impenitently live in any sin, not to approach the holy table, lest they partake unworthily, not discerning the Lord's body, and so eat and drink condemnation to themselves. Nevertheless, this warning is not designed to keep the humble and contrite from the table of the Lord. We who are invited to the supper humbly resolve to deny ourselves, crucify our sinful natures, and follow Christ as becomes those who bear His name." I thought that was very well said, well worded. It's the obedient who are called to use the supper as a means of grace, and not the ungodly and the profane. From that same book on baptism, it says, "...and since baptized persons are called upon to assume the obligations of the covenant, baptism summons us to renounce the devil, the world, and the flesh, and to walk humbly with our God in devotion to His commandments." Disobedience to the law of God makes our prayer abominable, prevents us from understanding the Word of God, makes us unworthy partakers of the Lord's Supper, and is a forsaking of our obligation in baptism. We who are saved by God's grace must be careful to live by that grace in conformity with God's holy standard of morality, which is His law." So in conclusion, think on this, kind of to sum up everything we've said tonight. We have seen that the Spirit is not antagonistic to the law of God. That we are to work toward realizing the level of righteousness imputed to us in our practical living by the Spirit's power. So the righteousness of Christ that has been imputed to the believer, the believer needs to be diligently working toward realizing that, toward living that out. That we are to imitate Christ's obedience. That the indwelling of the Spirit is attested by obedience to God's law. That the pattern of our sanctification is the law of God reflecting God's holiness. That sanctification by the Spirit produces life, peace, love, and a family relationship to Christ. And that the means of grace which are calculated to build us up in the faith are ineffective without obedience to God's law. In short, the law is indispensable in sanctification. So that's the connection between the believer's sanctification in the Spirit with the written law of God. God's statutes, His judgments, His ordinances, His commandments, is good. The New Testament tells us that the law is holy and good. The Old Testament tells us the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. And as we're going through in Sunday school, just now in Psalm 1-1, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight. is in the law of the Lord. And in His law doth he meditate day and night. That's what the believer is striving for in his sanctification by the power of the Spirit, is that we would be that blessed man that delights in the law of the Lord, that meditates in that law day and night. And the Spirit is the only way that we'll be enabled to do that. An unconverted man, unassisted by the Spirit of God, will never obtained any kind of true holiness or righteousness. Any questions or comments before we close? No? Alright, let's close in a word of prayer then and we can get home and get to bed. Father, we are so grateful again for your goodness to us. We meditate on these truths and I know so often for so many of them, I'm a little bit taken aback by how quickly I forget that the word that you gave us is a pure word. That the statutes and laws that you've given to govern us are not laws made to be heavy and hurtful, but are made to be happy and helpful. And so we pray that You would help us to live in that, that we would see Your laws and Your commandments as delightful in every way, and that we would delight in them. We thank You that Christ has fulfilled that perfect standard of righteousness, and that our attaining to it is not the grounds of our rightness with You, but that our life in Christ is the foundation upon which we build all future holiness and obedience. We thank you for the Holy Spirit which enables us, because we recognize, even as believers, even with the Spirit indwelling us, that there's still a law warring within our members. and we would be lost and completely undone and unable without that Spirit's assistance. So we pray You continue to work in us to do that. I thank You for the progress that I see in my own life and even from just the little bits that I get to see and touch the lives of even those individuals here, who have professed faith in Christ, and I see in each of them an advancing in a love for You and for Your Word. I pray that that would never cease, that You would be merciful in causing it to be so that there's no one here who's a false convert, a Judas, who kisses the door of heaven only to go straight to hell. but rather that everyone here would be more like a Peter, or a David, or a Solomon, that though there be times of great struggle and great failure, you ever renew us to repentance and faith in Christ. Be with each of us as we go our separate ways this evening. Please give safety as we travel until you bring us together again. We ask all this in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen.